Lime Applications

Balance Your Soil With Lime Applications

Liming is the practice of applying an agent to reduce soil acidity (raise the pH level) and make soil more favorable for turfgrass growth.

Reduce your soil acidity!

Soil pH is a measurement of the soil’s alkalinity or acidity. pH is measured on a scale of 0-14, with 7 being considered neutral. Anything below 7 is considered acidic and anything above 7 is considered alkaline. The grass in the PA, NJ and DE tri-state area prefers a slight acidic soil, a desired pH range for our grass types is a pH of 6.0- 7.0.

Why Do PA, NJ, and DE Experience Acidic Soil?

Our market naturally has acidic soils. We have performed thousands of pH readings as well as analytical soil tests validating this fact. There are several factors for why the northeast experiences acidic soils.

In the northeast we get a high rate of annual rainfall. Rainfall naturally causes loss of nutrients such as magnesium and calcium that would otherwise help buffer soil pH.  We also experience acidic rainfall due to air pollutants which impacts the soils pH and there is organic matter common to our market that decays causing the production of hydrogen ions responsible for soil acidity.

For all these reasons we recommend an annual lime service. These applications are intended to maintain an optimum soil pH for grass growth. The benefits of a managed soil pH is that it enhances the availability of essential plant nutrients, better rooting of plants, improved soil structure as well as an increase in soil microorganisms. If you don’t have annual lime applications included as part of your fertilizing and weed control service please fill out a free estimate form or give us a call for a quote!